


Shaky Hands

by chronicAngel



Series: Whumptober 2019 [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Miraculous, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Blood, Broken Bones, Gen, POV Third Person, Serious Injuries, Stitches, Vigilantism, Whumptober, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-15 06:43:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20861933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicAngel/pseuds/chronicAngel
Summary: "Can't you at least give me some painkillers or something?" She jokes half-heartedly, because looking around him she sees that he doesn't have anything to offer her other than the needle that he is poorly trying to thread with shaking hands.





	Shaky Hands

**Author's Note:**

> I started late but I have some Ideas.

The downside to Marinette's costume-- one of the many downsides, anyway-- is that for its practical design (she's both a fashion designer and a feminist, after all), it is still made of _cotton_. She's not exactly rich after all, a college student and the child of two bakers before that. She had limited materials to work with, and though she's saving up for something tougher, for now this is what she's stuck with-- black-spotted red cotton.

She's not sure what ever gave her the crazy idea to become a vigilante of all things. She didn't exactly have a lot of physical training before that-- she's actually kind of super clumsy. She'd taken a ballet class when she was about six, but quit it when she was eight because she wasn't as graceful as the other girls and it made her self-conscious. But, she'd seen an old man being mugged on the street and seen the way everyone around them just ignored it and she knew she had to do something.

Just stepping in and stopping it then hadn't been enough. She'd gone home and, like she was trapped in some childish fantasy, she designed a dozen costumes before she found a gimmick that felt sufficiently comic book while also sufficiently _her_. And really, she was-- trapped in a childish fantasy, that is. She didn't even go to the _gym_ regularly, so she had no idea how she expected scrawny, clumsy _her_ to defend Paris, which really didn't even have crime rates _that_ high, anyway. Not compared to places like Gotham City and Metropolis and other cities of fiction. Real life didn't look like comic books. She didn't know what she was expecting.

For the most part, "Ladybug" had been successful, actually. In her short couple of months, she's stopped several muggings and caught shoplifters in the nick of time. Really, they should deputize her now, it's such an impressive track record. But then there's a killer in Paris, and she's only been doing this for a couple of months, and sure, she started going to the gym, but that still hardly makes her qualified. Still, she's a superhero now. Or, what passes for a superhero when you're 19 and you don't have any superpowers and your costume is made of _cotton_.

She's a hero, now, and she feels incredibly unqualified and incredibly alone and incredibly _scared_ as she approaches a house in the 16th Arrondissement. It's an incredibly wealthy neighborhood that not many people live in, but the killer has been targeting wealthier and wealthier families and she is confident this is the next place he'll strike. She just has to catch him, which can't be too hard, what with all of the experience catching serial killers she has. After all, how different can a _killer_ be from a mugger on the street who, really, just runs away when he sees a hero involved?

Evidently, very different, because she doesn't even notice him before she feels a sharp pain in her back, and she looks over her shoulder in horror to see a man with a terrifying, Cheshire cat grin cracking his face.

He pulls the knife out of her back, and she turns on one foot to face him, trying to ignore the horrible pain in her back. It feels as though all of the muscles around the stab wound are tense, applying pressure to the wound in a way that is probably keeping her from bleeding out but also in a way that makes her hiss through her teeth with even the smallest movement.

He shoves his knife into her gut, lifts a foot, and kicks her so hard in the abdomen that it launches her flying back through the nearby sliding glass doors to the house he was about to break into. Weapon lodged into her flesh, though, he is, at least, forced to retreat. _Mission accomplished_, she thinks, rolling onto her side so she does not lay on her stab wound.

She watches him with bleary eyes as he runs away and she can only be thankful that she saved the family even as there are painful cuts all over her body from broken glass, some pieces still embedded deep into her back, not to mention the stab wounds on both sides of her body. She thinks that even if she bleeds out on the floor in a stranger's house, she's done her job well. She _saved_ these people. Nothing else should matter. Not her life, not the wasted time on becoming Paris' hero (and her name was _just_ starting to spread on the streets). Just that they're safe.

"Holy shit," she hears, but she is in too much pain to snap her head to look at the source of the voice. She doesn't have to wait long to see the guy anyway, as soon he is crouching over her and running his eyes over her in panic. "Ladybug," he breathes, and she thinks she might even see his cheeks heat up. He's got startlingly bright green eyes and the lightest traces of freckles dusting his otherwise perfectly tanned cheeks.

He looks familiar, though she can't begin to guess where she would have seen someone who can afford to live in the 16th Arrondissement. He's fit, but not in an athletic way. As he scrambles away from her like he's looking for something, she can see the traces of the muscles in his back through his t-shirt. He's model fit, she thinks. He looks like he works out for appearance more than strength or performance. If he played a sport, it'd be track or fencing-- some fake sport.

When he comes back, he's got a little cookie tin, like what her maternal grandmother keeps sewing supplies in, and when he pops the lid her eyes go wide as she realizes why he's gotten it. "No no no no," she says quickly, trying to push herself to sit up. She's in too much pain, and her limbs are too weak with the adrenaline overload in her system anyway, so she just collapses back to the floor and then lets out a cry of pain.

"I don't want to do this either." He's clearly trying to be reassuring, but it only makes her feel worse about the whole thing, dread settling in the pit of her stomach.

"Can't you at least give me some painkillers or something?" She jokes half-heartedly, because looking around him she sees that he doesn't have anything to offer her other than the needle that he is poorly trying to thread with shaking hands.

"I'm sorry. Ibuprofen is a blood thinner. So is alcohol." He says back, and she sucks her lip between her teeth. At the very least, he does seem genuinely sympathetic. He gets the thread through the eye of the needle, and then she's squeezing her eyes shut as he pulls the knife out of her gut first. She actually sees what feels like a wave of blood gush out of her onto the floor, adding to the already growing puddle of dark blood around her. A rusty stain immediately starts to spread through the cotton of her costume, and she thinks that it won't be able to be washed. She'll have to completely remake it.

She has to take her costume off, the fabric fighting to stick to her skin with slick blood. A surprising amount of the glass in her back comes out with it. A larger amount of it doesn't, but she can't deal with that right now. She lays back down on her side, ignoring the feeling of cold hardwood against her shoulder and the shiver it shoots through her whole body to shoot him a sharp look and then nod curtly. She takes in a sharp breath when the needle pierces her skin, her hands balling so tightly into fists that she can feel her nails cutting into her palms.

Her teeth start chattering when he's only made two stitches, and she wonders privately if it is a response to the cold floor (or the cold spreading through her whole body as she loses more and more blood) or the pain. Either way, she can feel hot tears rolling down her cheeks even as she doesn't know when she started crying. She knows that the pain doesn't get better. Her stab wound is still throbbing with pain, her back still feels like someone is pressing as hard as they can on the wound, and the needle spreads a pain that is somehow simultaneously sharp, burning, and throbbing. He grabbed her shoulder to steady her after the first stitch was made, when she was shaking too hard for him to safely continue stitching, and she can feel his own hand shaking against her flesh.

"Tell me it's gonna be okay," she pleads. Begs this stranger for reassurance. She feels like a child and not like the superhero she has been pretending to be for months now. He just finishes the third stitch silently, and she slams her fist against the floor as hard as she can, but she's so _weak_ and it's not that hard at all. "Tell me it's gonna stop hurting," she cries, louder, and then sniffs. He pauses in his ministrations, his green eyes meeting her blue. She can see him soften a bit. He's been trying to force his resolve to harden. She can tell. He's as terrified as she is.

"I can't tell you that," he whispers. She swallows and buries her face in her own shoulder and the floor, sobbing harder.

**Author's Note:**

> My girlfriend does track I'm just a Jerk, lmao.


End file.
